


Mercy

by Schattenfeuer



Series: Ophelia [1]
Category: Nightmare Harem (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Other, Reader-Insert, Sacrifice, genderneutral reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25746982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenfeuer/pseuds/Schattenfeuer
Summary: Relearning how to smile was the hardest thing you had ever faced.
Relationships: Mikael/reader
Series: Ophelia [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867681
Kudos: 1





	Mercy

Who was it, that decided the worth of your soul? Who was it, that had this power, to put your life and your memories onto the grand scale of the cosmos? Whoever it was, they were playing a cruel trick on you, no, not just yourself but all of them. It was a disservice that the man who you had just begun to unravel from layers upon layers of ice, had to be the one. He called it a honor but the word rung hollow in your ears, it summoned suspicion and dread up inside your chest, which then nestled themselves as thorns of ice in the warmness of your beating heart. 

Suddenly, each heartbeat became a precious commodity. a single one more precious than any gold and jewels this or the next world could offer, you wanted nothing more than to curl up in your misery and greedily keep every single one of his to yourself. But your fingers were stiffened by impending grief and your grip on him loosened to a dangerous degree, the thought of parting in whatever way causing pain to rage through your nervesystem, white hot and unrelenting, nothing could stop this agony, no matter how potent. 

You had always thought that there would be more, more time, more chances to get to actually know each other. But time stopped for no one, not even you or the Lord of the Angels. And especially not for your pitiful struggles, your attempts to rectify why this was so wrong. Selfishly, you wanted a world where he would remain, even though it would come at the cost of everyone else and you almost drove yourself to absolute madness during the early hours of the night, right before dawn was about to break and steal you of yet another day.

A change was coming and going and it started as well as ended with you, for everyone else had already accepted what your mind refused to do so. Nothing changed except the shaking that had permanently settled into your hands, except the dark shadows that hung under your eyes like a bruising premonition of things yet to come. 

“What are you going to do?”, your empty gaze hung at the sun light color of his hair while his words echoed through the grandness of the room, was drowned out by the dying gurgle of the water’s retracting, its level slowly declining as Nightmare started to dry up, patch by patch of land and Sky Castle attempted to squeeze even the last precious drop out of its stony veins. “There is still time, you know?”

“What can I do?”, you finally graced your guardian with an answer, even if it was one that came from the depths of your wallowing self pity and utter helplessness. Three months and you had apparently learned nothing, three months and it felt like the price to pay for those moments experienced was too high, the sum of it running together and making your head spin. “Where to even start?”

You sincerely doubted that your words would reach Mikael’s heart this time around and even if they would, all you could reach for was to sour his ambition, take away the serenity with which he had bowed to his own fate, graciously like everything he did. The memory alone was enough to cut yet another deep, bleeding wound into your tattered heart, you curled around your knees in a hope that this would somehow prevent the pain from spreading. Across from you, kept away by both yourself and the slowly dying lake, Lucas could only watch and pity you, as you struggled against the pain of your heart breaking and your own tears. Useless, you could only rock back and forth while praying to whatever deity was willing to listen that those waves of nauseating hurt would not drag you down, would not drown you and steal you of your already feeble breath. 

“Why are you acting like this?”, the same question, this time from another one’s mouth, hours later. You had barely noticed the change of scenery and the movement of your body, it was as if you had disconnected from the physical plain of existence to minimize the impact of what was about to happen. No grasping hands could reach you and every thrown lifeline sunk in the ocean that your mind had become. Your mouth opened but no words left it, they had all dried up and disappeared, your tongue as useless as a broken chip of wood, in your detachment you barely felt the heat from Ricardo’s palms on your shoulders, your body flinched when his grip turned bruising but the flicker of pain never made it to the core of your being, the place where you had retreated to nurse the gaping wounds of your psyche. “Why aren’t you doing something? Where is all that optimistic courage from before?”

“I...I don’t know…”, even though it came from your mouth, you did not recognize the person speaking with your voice. It sounded like you. Vaguely. Through someone else’s eyes, you saw the helpless anger blaze bright in Ricardo’s one good eye, his fingers twitching as if he wanted to lash out so badly, part of you wished he had done it, maybe it would have helped you settle back into this strung up husk that you called a body. Instead he clicked his tongue in disappointment that cut sharper than any rage could, brushed past you without gracing you with any sort of reply. 

And time kept passing, running through your fingers like the water that he was about to become, that he was about to die for. You had become an aimlessly wandering ghost in the hallways, a pale shadow of yourself as you attempted to stop the pain, all while coming up with an idea of how to stop this all from happening, in your self chosen punishment of isolation you started to chip away at the little rest of sanity you had left, your breaking was a silent one as it all run down to the one thing you could not, would never accept. So when someone carelessly, mindlessly, let it slip that there was a way out of this, you showed no emotion on the outside.

But you refused to let this just slip by, you finally reached out, even if it was for all the wrong reasons and the distance separating yourself from your body shrunk away, your smile came back to you like an old acquaintance, you wore it effortlessly while plotting a betrayal so severely that Mikael would no doubt hate you for it. A soul for a soul, you were more than ready to throw away your life to protect this man’s heart, even if you were not able to to reach it, to touch it like you had hoped you could. 

“You’re smiling again...Good.”, Mikael sounded so relieved when he said that, his calm words caused a more violent reaction from his comrades, as they had gone on ignoring your hollow shell for the longest of time, this newfound attention directed at you made it harder and at the same time you revelled in it, for a moment it felt so blissfully normal again, a small mercy for your broken spirit. “I missed your smile.”

He attempted to built you up, instead he broke you down furthermore, Mikael had no idea of what you were ready to give, if it just mean that you could keep him alive and breathing. Your dedication to this one sided love was sickening and at the same time the sweetest thing you had ever tasted in your life. So, you smiled wider and for the first time since hearing about the sacrifice at the red moon’s dawning, it reached your dulled eyes, caused the veil of grief and hurt and despair to part like the clouds after rainfall. 

“Yes. I found a reason to smile again.”, you nodded sagely and the breath of relief going around the dinner table masked over the soft sound of the blade rattling in your pocket. “I bet you will too soon.”


End file.
